At a workshop today, I found perhaps the most perfect outlet yet for my obsessive tendencies: mosaic!
In a special two-day course attached to my chemistry class, we had the opportunity to make a mosaic. This week we laid out our designs from sketches:
I decided to make an image of cypress trees based on Van Gogh's Wheat Field with Cypresses, which I recently posted here.
We picked smalti tesserae in various colors for blending shades.
Then we used a cool nipping thing to cut the tiles down into smaller pieces.
In my case, I decided to go really micro and cut then into eighths (1/4 the size of the pieces seen here).
Using tweezers and a lot of care, we laid our mosaic pieces out onto the design, and once I got over the feelings of playing Operation, I really found the Zen of squeezing every possible tiny piece in as close together as I could.
When you're staring down at it from an angle, it looks like miniature corn niblets or a strange pixelated image, but as you move away it starts taking on forms and developing shading.
Obviously this is my first mosaic, so I haven't quite mastered making the image "read" the way it should, but I think some of the idea is getting across. I'm planning to border it all with bright red (the color of the poppies in this field), with gold pieces at the corners (gotta use the bling).
I really love this process, and I think it's easy enough to replicate at home. As an additional point of fantastic nerdistry, the tesserae we used came from the Orsoni glass factory in Venice, which I visited with a Materials & Techniques class. Words can't describe what a thrill that was for me.
Next week we mix a lime mortar, lay out a fresco-like under-layer and piece the tiles into the mosaic. I can't wait!!!
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